


Subliminal Descent

by pinecone



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, Introspection, M/M, Mindfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 12:50:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1941789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinecone/pseuds/pinecone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akashi loses to Seirin in the Winter Cup finals. This outcome isn’t kind to his subconscious. Or to his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Subliminal Descent

It was like being stuck in a windstorm. Winds buffeted him to one side. Only a split-second later, he was thrown to the other. Being physically ripped in two would have been a relief. Anything would have been better than this horror. The chasm in his mind was deepening with torturous sluggishness, as though his brain was being sliced, methodically, by a very sharp scalpel. Voices swirled in his head, the jaunty accompaniment to his mind-splitting agony — a tornado of symphonies.

One side said: " _You're weak. You're pathetic."_

The other said: _"If you just give me an attempt, I'll win for sure. I'll motivate everyone and Rakuzan will win. You'll see."_

Back and forth, the voices swayed, pendulum-like.

_"No. Relinquishing control to you would result in an even more dismal performance."_

_"I am capable of it. Rakuzan is capable of it."_

_"Rakuzan has failed to live up to expectations. To my expectations."_

_"We can still catch up. Seirin hasn't gone up that far — "_  

_"The fact that Seirin was allowed to get this far is already a failure in and of itself."_

_"I agree, but there is a way to counter them, I'll show — "_  

 _"All because you insisted on relegating tasks to the 'others'."_  

 _"They did their best, Mibuchi, Hayama, Nebu— "_  

_"Don't you remember what happened the last time you trusted? You failed, then, too."_

Silence. It was like a black bird swooping down, stopping the swinging pendulum in its tracks.

Minute by minute, Seirin's score increased. Rakuzan's remained stagnant. To Akashi, seconds passed like minutes. Minutes passed like hours. At his very centre, something was being consumed. It was like the sun entering an eclipse. Warmth, slowly being devoured by a slinking darkness. His core, if it had a shape, was undergoing a distortion. 

The game ended at last. Did a buzzer sound? Akashi couldn't be sure. External sounds were inaudible to him. It was almost like he was underwater, hearing someone scream. Or maybe hearing himself scream. There was no clarity at all. His heartbeat, however, was razor-sharp. So was his breathing, oddly ragged.

"...Akashi-kun?" It was Kuroko. He looked curiously at Akashi, his forehead creased.

"Hey, Akashi, come on. We gotta bow," Hayama spoke up. A dejected look was etched on his face. What about my face, thought Akashi. What does it look like? 

"Akashi." Mayuzumi walked towards him. "Come on. Quit standing there." He grabbed Akashi's arm, dragging him to face Seirin. Beads of Mayuzumi's sweat flicked onto Akashi, a drop landing on his lower lip. He licked it automatically. 

As they bowed to Seirin, all Akashi could think about was how salty that drop of sweat was.  

 

 

Getting back to his hotel room was yet another gap in his memories. He could remember Kuroko saying something to him — 

"... _you were an incredibly difficult and worthy opponent, Akashi-kun, but it was still fun, for me. I hope it was the same, for you..._ "

— but only flashes of their conversation registered to him. Mibuchi, Nebuya and Hayama said something too — 

"... _thank you for leading us...we couldn't have made it to this stage if you hadn't been our captain..."_  

— but that wasn't clear either. Images came and went in his vision, like a film put on fast forward. Now he could see rows and rows of cream-coloured lockers. When did he get into Rakuzan's locker room? Just a moment ago, all he could see was the glaring fluorescent lights of the court, and the digital screen board, showing their scores — 

"Akashi? Hey, Akashi?" The images dispelled. It was Nebuya's voice, sounding worried.

"Sei-chan. Let's go." Mibuchi's. "...Sei-chan?"

Hayama was next. "Akashi?! Akashi! Come on! We can't stay in this locker room forever! We have to get out here or they'll chase us out — "

"You guys are useless," came Mayuzumi, irritation clear in his voice. "I'll handle him, you guys just pack up here." 

Then a spot of warmth was on his arm. It was Mayuzumi, taking him out of the gym. They went to a bus stop, and took a bus back to the hotel the Rakuzan team was staying in. On the bus, Mayuzumi kept up a one-sided conversation, "What's wrong with you? Aren't you supposed to be some overwhelmingly strong, battle-hardened player? Why are you acting like this one match is your life? Believe me, I'm fucking disappointed too. I'm a _senior._ I won't get any other chances. But you will. So stop with all this shit, okay?"

Akashi hadn't answered him. He was concentrating on his insides. They were changing. His heart was turning inside out, the externality being shed like a cockroach moulting its skin. Ecdysis, the process was called. It felt like ropes tightening. 

The sensation only became stronger on the journey to Akashi's room. He was being choked from the inside. Leaning heavily onto Mayuzumi, he placed one foot in front of the other, slowly and methodically like building Lego blocks. In Akashi's room, they inched carefully towards his bed. When they reached it at last, Mayuzumi grunted, pulling off Akashi's arm from his shoulder. Akashi sank into the bed. His breaths were deafening to Akashi's own ears.

"Shit," Mayuzumi swore, sinking onto the bed next to Akashi. His legs tangled with Akashi's but neither of them cared. Mayuzumi's ragged breathing filled the air, alongside Akashi's quiet breaths. Hearing these sounds, Akashi was suddenly conscious of their sweet harmony. One uneven, the other regular. He pressed his legs against Mayuzumi's, entwining them more. For some reason, this made the tightening ropes within him more bearable. 

All of a sudden Akashi's phone rang. Mayuzumi swore again. He placed his hand into the pocket of Akashi's track pants, fumbling around for his phone.

"Hello?" Mayuzumi said harshly, once he got the phone out. 

A pause. Then, "...May I speak with Akashi-kun, please?" Akashi heard Kuroko's calm tones on the line. "I'm a little worried, he didn't seem like himself earlier — "

"This is Mayuzumi," he interrupted. "No need to worry, he's with me. And of course he isn't himself, we just fucking lost to you."

Silence, for a while. Mayuzumi lifted his hand to cover his eyes. "...Shit," he said quietly. "Sorry about that."

"That's alright. I understand."

"Anyway...thanks for calling. Akashi will be okay. It is...just a loss in a match, after all." 

Mayuzumi's voice had bounced off the walls of Akashi's room like an echo. Now they reverberated in Akashi's head. We lost, Akashi thought. I lost. _We lost. I lost._

"Thank you.” Kuroko’s voice was tinny through the phone. “I'll leave it to you then." There was a click.

Sighing, Mayuzumi fell back against the bed. His legs brushed against Akashi’s with the motion. Each stroke, Akashi felt acutely. It slowed the ecdysis of his heart.

Mayuzumi glanced sideways at Akashi. “Pull yourself together. It was shameful that our opponents in the match had to call you to see if you were okay. This is harsh, but needs to be said. You’re our captain. Anyone who sees you thinks of Rakuzan. If you continue acting this way, Rakuzan’s name itself will be tarnished.” He got up from the bed. “Not that I give a shit. I’ll be leaving anyway.” He strode out of Akashi’s room, plunging it into a silence as though all sound had been sucked into a vacuum.

Akashi continued lying on the bed. A ringing sound then filled his ears. Almost as though it dictated him, Akashi turned his head, eyes falling on a snow globe atop the television set. A cheap piece of hotel decoration.

Akashi stood up. He picked up the globe. Inside the glass sphere was a little house, gaudily coloured. Its windows, however, were reflective. Akashi could see himself on them. Running his fingers over the sphere’s smooth surface, he paused as a sudden roughness grazed his skin. He turned the globe over.      

On the rounded surface, glossy and shiny everywhere else, was a crack.

***

Rakuzan had two weeks of lessons before holidays for the New Year began. On the Monday after the Winter Cup, Akashi went to his classroom amidst whispers in the corridors. Going through them was like slicing through butter with a spoon. Each one pressed onto Akashi, tunneling into him through his pores. Once inside, they constricted him. His breathing became louder and his heartbeats faster. 

The suffocation continued during his first lesson of the day. His teacher, Tanaka-sensei, had the tendency to tap the blackboard every time he illustrated a point. In fact, he tapped surfaces whichever conversation he was in. As a boy, this tic surfaced when he performed calculations in his favourite subject, Mathematics. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by his grandparents and worked hard to enter university, studying this subject.

“Tapping helped me a lot for coursework in Waseda University,” Tanaka once jested to Akashi’s class, tapping the blackboard all the while.

In middle school, high school and university, Tanaka was ostracised. After graduating, he went to Rakuzan to teach. He already spent six years in Rakuzan pandering to the administration, the teachers, and the students, hoping to make something of himself. Akashi knew all of this about Tanaka. He knew all about his other teachers as well. It was necessary information for him in Rakuzan.    

Tanaka’s tapping went on and on throughout the hour. Akashi eventually leaned against his desk, pressing fingertips to his temples. Like sharp needles, the taps stabbed into his mind, inflicting short, sharp bursts of pain.

“Akashi-kun.” Tanaka turned from the blackboard, looking at Akashi. “Would you mind showing the class how to do this problem?” 

This happened nearly every lesson. Tanaka-sensei favoured Akashi. The weak always gravitated to the strong. Akashi stood up, curving his lips into a smile. The stabbing pain, however, continued. 

“Certainly, sensei. It would be my pleasure.” 

He went up and effortlessly solved the problem. Walking back towards his desk, he realised that as he performed the calculations, the stabbing had petered out into a dull throbbing. Relief wafted over him.

Then Tanaka cleared his throat. “Erm...sorry, Akashi-kun. The answer isn’t as you have written here. It should have been this one.” He cancelled out Akashi’s answer, writing a new one. After a short silence, the classroom was besieged with whispers. The effect was like a shrill alarm screaming, right into Akashi’s ears. The stabbing came back to him in full force, and so did the suffocation.   

Akashi narrowed his eyes. “No, sensei. I have to disagree.” He went up to the blackboard again, standing next to Tanaka. “My calculations were flawless. If you see over here...” He took a few minutes to explain his thought process.

Tanaka frowned. “Yes...yes...you do make sense. However, as it is written here, your answer doesn’t correspond to the textbook. Therefore, you most definitely made a mistake somewhere.”

“There is no mistake.” To him, Akashi’s own voice could only have been spoken by someone else. The pain and suffocation wouldn’t have allowed him to speak so clearly, so full of certainty. “I would never make a mistake on a problem this simple.”

“Be that as it may, the answer isn’t this one. You were wrong here, Akashi-kun.” Tanaka moved to continue writing out his answer.

The whispers became even louder. Akashi had a sudden mental image of himself standing on a rock, surrounded by violent, crashing waves. He reached out, grabbing the textbook from Tanaka’s hands. It tore, the sound carrying over the whispers.   

Then silence descended. Like all sound had slipped into nothingness. Just like that time in the hotel room with Chihiro, thought Akashi. He paid no attention, perusing the textbook instead.

“Akashi-kun…” Tanaka began. 

“Ah,” said Akashi, ignoring Tanaka. He traced his pointer finger on the textbook, even as a few torn pages flew down to the floor. “Here it is. You wrote the values in the question wrongly.” Looking up, he pinned Tanaka with a hard gaze. “I told you. I made no mistake. The mistake had been yours.”

Tanaka glanced down at the textbook. “Oh.” Rubbing his neck, he said, “Right...I guess I owe you an apology for this, Akashi-kun — ”

“Just how idiotic are you, Tanaka-sensei?” 

Tanaka blinked, his hand unmoving on his neck. “...I beg your pardon?”

“I said, how idiotic are you, sensei?” Something was transforming inside Akashi. A metamorphosis of some sort, like his insides were becoming another creature. There was definitely a strange stirring. “You accused me of making a mistake, when you were the fool who made the error. Do you not have a brain? Or perhaps you do have one, it’s just incredibly small you might as well not have one at all.” 

“So I suppose I should actually forgive you this mistake.” Akashi hummed, the sound echoing in the deep silence. “However, why should I? Mistakes should not be tolerated. _Failures_ should not be tolerated. After all, what happens once you’ve made a mistake? You might think it as something small and insignificant. Then what of mistakes such as those on the battlefield? Cao Cao made the error of listening to ill advice from a spy, contributing to the fall of an entire dynasty. Napoleon erroneously underestimated the frigidity of Russia’s winter, causing the failure for his own invasion. There should be no threshold of acceptance for an error. All errors are equal. All errors are unacceptable.”

In the silence, Akashi could almost hear his insides changing. The sound was like scales on skin rubbing together. “Once you fail, you become nothing. Not an imbecile. Not a fool. Nothing. Like perhaps you should have no existence at all.” 

Akashi dropped the textbook. It fell to the ground with a crash, several of the pages going at a slower speed as though they were moulted insect wings.

“You should quit— no. You should disappear,” he said coldly. “You are useless. Everyone here would be much better without you.”

Tanaka swallowed hard. He ventured, voice cracking, “Akashi-kun — ”

Akashi strode out the classroom. He grabbed a piece of chalk from the blackboard on the way out. His insides still writhing, he crushed the chalk in one hand. Doing that made the writhing more bearable.

He turned a corner in the corridor. Then he bumped into someone.

“Akashi?” It was Mayuzumi. At the sound of his voice, the writhing stopped abruptly. Akashi’s mind became clear, like he was in a room filled only with white light. He stood there, blinking innocently. “Shouldn’t you be in class?” said Mayuzumi, peering curiously at him. “ _I’m_ out here because the teacher sent me to grab something. 

Mayuzumi’s scrutinisation drew Akashi to his eyes. Looking into them created a deep resonance of some sort inside Akashi, like he was inside a bell and all around him were reverberations. Akashi blinked again, slowly. “...I’m not sure. I think so.” His fingertips whisked against his palm. 

Powder? He looked down, staring at his hand. Why was there chalk powder on his hand? 

Mayuzumi smirked. “You look like a little lost boy in a mall.” Walking ahead in the corridor, he turned his head slightly, then jerked it. “Come on. I’ll take you back to your classroom, Akashi- _chan_.”

Akashi nodded. He took a moment, first, to savour the serenity of that white room in his mind. Then he went after Mayuzumi, following his back. 

When he got back in his classroom, Tanaka wasn’t there. Only a few of his classmates were present as well. They stared at Akashi, eyes wide.

A few days later, Akashi discovered that Tanaka had quit.

*** 

 _...the status of Ares, though named the God of War, is ambiguous due to the role he played during the Trojan Wars. He was on the losing side...in the Wars, he fought with his sister and bitter enemy Athena, who flung a giant rock at him, knocking him unconscious...the Greeks’ reception towards Ares was somewhat unfavourable as he represented brutality and bloodlust...he is often depicted as savage, violent, untamed...his sister Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, was more highly revered...both are gods of warfare but the warfare represented by Athena was of the tactical and strategic nature, hence widespread admiration for Athena...while Ares himself appeared to be fickle, switching sides merely to spill blood…_  

Eyes faintly tired, Akashi looked up to take a short break. He glanced out the window. Two birds were squawking, fighting over a morsel of food. Their violent flapping wings released a few stray feathers. Floating gently, they drifted over to the neat arrangement of stones lining the pathway surrounding Akashi’s house.

He was at home for the weekend. Usually he had basketball practice. Since the Winter Cup was just over however, that weekend was free. Akashi took the opportunity to do some light reading. He couldn’t explain why he had chosen an encyclopedia on Greek Mythology. For some reason he had been drawn to it.

I am Athena, thought Akashi. I achieve results through sophisticated tactics. My intelligence is widely admired. He released a quiet breath. 

 _“Are you really?”_ A voice came up, languidly. It was sharp, like the sound of a knife scratching across a sheet of metal. Akashi’s head jerked upwards, eyes going wide.

Suddenly, he was in that windstorm once more. Spinning around in his head, the voices were the percussions, the strings, the brass, the woodwinds all at once. A symphony of chaos. 

_“Do you not remember that match against Seirin?”_

_“I admit, that strategy could have been better executed — ”_

_“It was your impulses. Your emotions that caused the failure.”_

_“My impulses were to secure victory. I care about winning.”_

_“You care about winning. You care about your teammates. You care about Tetsuya.”_

_“Kuroko was a worthy opponent. Of course I acknowledge him.”_

_“You wanted to fight all out against him. Doesn’t that make you similar to Ares —”_

_“No. Ares is brutal and violent. Ares likes crushing his opponents. Ares is treated with derision.”_  

_“Ares acts according to his emotions. You act according to your emotions. And crushing opponents is something we both enjoy. It is the nature of victory.”_

_“No, I am Athena, I utilise strategy as a means to victory — ”_

_“You abandoned strategy for emotion during the match. You are Ares.”_

The windstorm continued, howling in Akashi’s mind. But one thing was clear. He had to be Athena. He had to destroy Ares. Standing up, Akashi made to turn towards the door leading to his garden. Before he moved, he caught sight of a statement in the book.

_Despite his negative reputation, Ares never used trickery or deceit in love and romance, unlike many other gods._

It burned into his mind. This was shoved aside momentarily, however, for something he had to do in that instance. Something which could halt the windstorm.

Akashi strode towards the line of stones by the pathway around his house. He picked up one of them, lifting it high with both hands. Athena defeated Ares in battle by using a sizeable rock, thought Akashi. I can do the same. He lowered the stone. Akashi did not even feel the stone hitting his head. Darkness had surrounded him.    

Eyes fail to see through darkness. No distinction lies between one shadow and another. 

Red rivulets drip down my forehead, down my neck. Blood pools, at my collarbone. It is thicker than I expected. Almost as if it is more real than imagination. Or more real than reality itself. 

*** 

When Akashi opens his eyes, he is very aware he is in a dream. It is strange, because everything feels as real as it could be. He is in Rakuzan. It is a Monday, he knows. The outline of the buildings, he notices, is sharp, like a bright, shiny scalpel, and his classmates treat him like they would in reality.

He walks to his classroom, his gait emanating authority, like always. He greets every one of his classmates ‘Good Morning’ in dignified, courteous tones, like always. He absorbs everything taught to him (English, Japanese History, Mathematics) easily, like always. Then it is lunch break and he takes out a bento. There is rice, fishcake, pickled vegetables and seaweed. Like always.

His classmate, Satou, listens to Ayaka’s ‘Nijiro’, the tunes belting out clearly from his music player. Then he is called by another classmate, Matsumoto. 

“Akashi-kun. You have a visitor.” Her tone is polite, tinged with shyness. 

Akashi nods, and moves to the classroom entrance. He stops short when he sees who it is. 

“Good afternoon, Akashi-kun. I hope I am not disturbing you.” Kuroko’s voice penetrates into Akashi’s mind, distinct like he is speaking through a static-less microphone.

“Kuroko. It’s a surprise to see you here." 

Kuroko smiles. The curve on his lips is gentle, like a patch of sunlight poking through an oak grove. “I wanted to see you, Akashi-kun. Even if you were in Kyoto.”

Akashi tilts his head. “Oh, is that so. Why?”

“I wanted to apologise. I had to defeat you in the Winter Cup in order to bring you back. I wanted you back, Akashi-kun.” Without realising, Akashi leans in. Kuroko’s breaths puff onto his skin, warm and enticing. Akashi goes closer.  

“That is very kind of you, Kuroko. Thank you.” His breath wafts together with Kuroko’s, both mixing like a pair of fluttering butterflies. Then his lips touch Kuroko’s. Kuroko’s lips part, and he tastes Kuroko’s breath. It is like baked honey, fresh from the oven. His tongue is soft, and Akashi wants to sink his own deeper into that sweet darkness.

“You know, Akashi,” Mayuzumi comes up, breaking Kuroko and Akashi apart. Both pant slightly. “Ares’ one true love was Aphrodite and he was hers.” 

“That’s quite true.” Kuroko nods, cheeks lightly flushed. “Although he did have other love affairs. Such as with Eos, the Goddess of Dawn.” 

“He had many loves, with both gods and mortals.” Mayuzumi leans in, and presses his lips onto Akashi’s. Akashi feels Mayuzumi’s hand on the back of his head, then his hair being gripped. The something inside him moves. Slowly, like a predator aroused by the tempting scent of prey. His own hands drift to his zipper. 

Kuroko’s hand lays over his, making him pause. A breath brushes against his ear, “ _Ares never used trickery or deceit in love_.” Mayuzumi’s lips are still on his. His tongue is wet and slightly rough. Under Kuroko’s hand, Akashi’s fingers curl around the band of his pants.

***

Akashi rolled over to his right side, trying to fall asleep. This wasn’t the first time he couldn’t sleep. It had been happening ever since that dream, where everything was so vivid. His senses had reacted with intense viscerality, as though he was in reality. I crossed the boundary between dream and reality, thought Akashi in jest, so as my punishment, sleep refuses to accord me with relief.

It was the Friday after the New Year’s holidays. Akashi had experienced insomnia for approximately fourteen days. It continued even when school started. The insomnia only happened at night, however. In the mornings, Akashi managed to take naps in the taxi on the journey to school, and during breaks. The dark was the time when the shadows and corporeality mingled together like two old friends.

“Hey, Akashi,” said Mayuzumi during lunch break that day, leaning in to peer closely at his face. “Your eyes look weird. Weirder than usual, I mean.” He smirked. “You obviously haven’t been sleeping. What have you been doing? Plotting strategies to dominate over us more than you already do?”

Akashi focused on the quirk playing on Mayuzumi’s lips. His lower half stirred. “That sounds ridiculous even by your standards of sarcasm, Chihiro.” He lifted a hand to his temple. “Indeed, I haven’t been able to rest.”

Mayuzumi frowned. Akashi went on, “It’s perfectly alright, though. Merely a brief spell of a too-alert mind.” He turned, heading back towards his classroom. Mayuzumi’s face had been too close. He had to get away before the windstorm began. The stirring in his lower half had already started becoming more pronounced.

Back at home, Akashi decided to ride Yukimaru. Riding always made him calmer. He strapped on the saddle, stirrups and bridle, wore his riding gear (helmet, boots and gloves), then lifted himself up onto Yukimaru. Up there, his back was straight and his vision frontwards. His mind went clear, like he was in that room of white light again. Yukimaru trotted on, round and round the riding grounds. Its steady motion made Akashi sway to the rhythm of his heart. A solitary cloud drifted across the sky.

Then Akashi started remembering what had caused the white light to appear in his mind. It had been Mayuzumi. He thought back about the time after the Winter Cup. It had been Mayuzumi then, too, who brought him back to his room. That was all it took for his insides to shiver again, violently. All of a sudden, his head became heavy, the heaviness that only came because he didn’t have the energy to lift it anymore. His eyelids, too. Why was he even bothering to keep them open?

Why do I keep them open? Why am I sitting here? Why are my hands gripping these reins so tightly? I can’t keep my head up anymore. I can’t keep sitting here, like this, anymore. I don’t want to hold these reins. I don’t want to have control. Over Yukimaru, over anyone. Over anything, anymore. I want to release them, to fall into the darkness where reality has no function.

A snow globe shattered. The image imprinted itself onto Akashi’s mind. The white room vanished. Akashi released the reins. He fell, and sank into the darkness.

***

Akashi opens his eyes. He finds himself on a hospital bed. Lifting his wrist, he is bemused to find a cannula attached to his forearm. He touches the top of his head. A thick layer of bandages is tightly wound around it. I see, Akashi thinks. This is the reason my head feels so heavy.

His bed shakes as someone rams into it. His arms are gripped by the same individual. “Akashi-chii!”

Akashi looks up. “Ryouta,” he says in greeting. Someone else slams onto his other side. Turning his head, Akashi sees Momoi. He nods. “Satsuki.” He looks beyond them to see that Kuroko, Midorima, Murasakibara, Aomine and all his Rakuzan teammates are in his room. “Greetings,” he says, and nods again.

Aomine snorts. “Greetings, my ass.” He runs his fingers through his hair frustratedly. “You’re _hurt._ ”

Akashi tilts his head. “Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Daiki. My observational skills are fortunately not as bad as you might assume.”

“Cut the bullshit,” Mayuzumi speaks up, glaring. Akashi raises his eyebrows at his harsh tone.

“That is not the way to speak to your captain — ”

“Apologies, Akashi-kun, but Mayuzumi-senpai is correct,” Kuroko interjects. “This is no time for jesting. You have injured your head. We are all worried about you.”

A brief silence. “...I see,” Akashi says at last.

Kise sighs. “I can’t believe you can hurt your head like that, Akashi-chii…”

“We were so scared something might be wrong with your head for good!” wails Momoi.

“This is why we must be vigilant at all times,” Midorima says quietly. He walks up to Akashi’s bed, then places a pack of purple gum onto his bedside table. “Sagittarius’ lucky item,” he adds awkwardly. “And Oha Asa did mention Sagittariuses specifically, to be careful.”

“I am generally a careful person,” states Akashi. He arranges his bed covers unnecessarily.

Midorima adjusts his spectacles slightly. “Yes. However, it is still necessary to remind you to take heed. Particularly of hard objects,” he adds flatly.

Hard objects? Looking up, Akashi raises his eyebrows slightly. Wasn't he injured from the fall? Or was it from the rock? Was this a dream, or a reality?

Murasakibara nods in agreement. “Mm...the force of an object...it is equal to mass times acceleration.”

“And mass is related to the solidity of an object,” Mibuchi pipes up. “So a hard object would definitely translate to greater force.” He smiles kindly. “Though I’m sure you knew all that. Be very careful, Sei-chan.”

“Yes. I do know that.” Each word is precisely stated, like something is constricting Akashi’s vocal chords.

“If falling is involved, acceleration equals gravity,” says Midorima gravely. “So the force would equals your weight, Akashi.”

Akashi’s breathing quickens. So does his pulse. He touches his bed sheets. They are soft, like bed sheets should be.

“Bottom line is, just be very careful of hard things like rocks,” drawls Mayuzumi, rolling his eyes. “I can just say it to you without all that physics crap.”

“Yeah, I didn’t understand a single thing of that stuff,” Hayama says with a shrug. “But even I can tell you that rocks are dangerous, whether you fling them — ”

“ — or they are on the ground,” Nebuya interjects, nodding briskly.

Akashi quickly scans his companions. They look like just the way he remembers them. That wasn’t good enough evidence. He touches his head. The bandages also feel real. But he couldn’t trust his senses. Even reality, apart from dreams, has a way of deceiving perceptions.

How was I injured, he thinks. Is this real? He wants to state these questions out loud.

Then Kuroko turns to Mayuzumi. “What happened when Ares fell, Mayuzumi-senpai?”

“When Athena struck Ares, he fell to the ground and lay there looking ridiculous,” drawls Mayuzumi in a bored tone. “Everyone, every single one of the gods, laughed at him. Only Aphrodite came to help him.”

“So everyone laughed at him,” Kuroko notes thoughtfully.

“Everyone laughed at him,” Momoi confirms.

“Everyone laughed,” Aomine says in a monotone. They all nod, in unison.

Then Mayuzumi speaks up, “It’s fine, though.” He waves a hand dismissively. “You’re in the darkness now, aren’t you?” He cracks a smirk at Akashi.

“That’s right,” Kuroko agrees, soothingly. “You’re in the darkness.” He also smiles at Akashi.

Silence, but only for a moment. How I am injured has no relevance anymore, Akashi concludes to himself. Neither is where I am now. It does not matter if this is a dream, or if this is real. Death, dreams, reality. All of these are no longer pertinent. Akashi's desire to question his companions dissipates.

Akashi’s lips curve upwards in response to both smiles. He closes his eyes. The confusion, the slight spinning in his head, leaves him. All his senses calm down, like debris falling, motionless, onto the ground after a heavy storm. He makes himself comfortable on that soft hospital bed. I’m in the darkness, he thinks. He lets his mind fill, slowly, with a bright, white light. Then, like it is sucked into a vacuum, the light disappears, leaving behind only darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments would be HIGHLY appreciated. =)
> 
> I understand it's vague but it's meant to be unclear what Akashi's fate is. Still, I'll be incredibly happy to hear what you think happened to him, so please do sound out in the comments below! =)


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